Trending Now: Rise of the Female Traveller

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The days of adventure travel being a boys’ club are over. Whilst there have always been pioneering ladies fighting tooth and nail for their place amongst the great explorers, it’s a narrative that has historically been dominated by male voices. But the tide is starting to turn, ushering a new era for a more balanced approach to adventure.

As for us, we’re excited by the rise in female adventurers. Whilst the rousing tales of women like Amelia Earhart, Nellie Bly and Fanny Bullock Workman have undeniably inspired us, these ladies were the exception rather than the norm – and their achievements, whilst extraordinary in their own right, are even more impressive given the society in which they lived.

What excites us about the modern focus on women in adventure travel is the increase of women generally. Not just innovators and explorers, but ordinary women, who aren’t world-record breakers or pioneers in their field or keen to map out unchartered territory, who want an adventure. In 2017, 57% of Exodus travellers were female – and many of those were women travelling solo. Not only is it very unusual to be the only solo traveller on an Exodus trip, it’s far from the norm to be the only solo woman.

This trend is definitely on the rise, and it’s not just Exodus ladies who’re leading the way. In the words of Travel + Leisure magazine, this is “a generation of female travellers who prefer surf weekends and mountain-climbing expeditions to the spa weekends of old”. For most of us, travelling is a chance to get out of our comfort zone and try something new. What defines our comfort zone is different for all of us, which is why we’re excited to see women booking onto our adventures across the board – represented at all activity levels, across all destinations.

It’s a wider reflection of societal change as a whole. The huge, and deserved, success of This Girl Can catches the zeitgeist of empowered women getting out there, doing what they want – regardless of appearance or ability. It’s about attitude, about putting yourself out there and trying something for the first time, or persevering when the reality is less glamourous than the adverts. It’s a message which has captivated and motivated women all across the UK.

Plus for British women, this year marks the centenary of the first women getting the right to vote at home. This landmark reconstitution, whilst still not giving universal suffrage (only property-owning women over the age of thirty were given the vote in 1918, and it took until 1928 for women to have equal voting rights as men), was nonetheless a pivotal step in women’s rights in Britain.

In honour of the centenary this year, we’re launching our female only departures. These departures of popular adventures will be all about championing and inspiring women in adventure travel. You’ll be in an all-female group, with an expert local female leader there to guide you. Our goal is to encourage as many women as possible to get adventuring, as well as making adventure accessible to women of all abilities. And along the way you’ll be able to meet and share an adventure with some incredible ladies too.

But it’s not just female travellers we’re celebrating, it’s women in the travel industry all over the world we want to support and champion. Here at Exodus, behind the scenes we’re working towards supporting more women to become leaders across the world – especially in destinations like Kilimanjaro, where tourism is an almost exclusively male industry – and we’re starting to see some real success. Our porter project has helped encourage more women to work on the mountain, and last year we sponsored our first female employee Neema Moses to take our Guiding Qualification course, a chance for her to progress up the career ladder from porter to becoming a guide. This is just one example – watch this space.

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